Last night’s dream had a special guest, a stepfather who died years after Mom divorced him. He’s father to two of my sisters. An addicted gambler, he lived in a room in a church, given to him with a small stipend for being the church caretaker, in the years before his death, forced to go there after the factory where he worked on a baking assembly line was shut down.
I always felt sorry for him and said so to my half-sisters, his daughters. One snapped, “I love him but he was very stupid and made bad decisions. He never learned from anything that he did.”
Hearing her say that shocked me, although it had been my opinion of him. All that is background to the dream, along with the note that I’ve had about six dreams featuring dead people in 2023. This is George’s first appearance.
To the dream.
I was visiting Mom at her house. She and I and everyone present were decades younger than RL. George, the deceased stepfather, was there, planning to go on a trip. His presence surprised me; I knew he was dead and I knew that he and Mom were divorced, but there he was.
‘There’ was a half-finished house. I couldn’t fully grasp what was done, as it wasn’t consistent in the dream. George mostly emerged from the bathroom and was in the kitchen when I encountered him. One oddity about the unfinished house was that the yard outside of it was covered in white carpeting. Sometimes a part of the yard was set up as a room, carpet on the floor, trees around it.
My two little sisters, George’s daughters, were there, young teenagers. George didn’t like me and was showing it. I was making comments to Mom. When I did, George would correct me. He’s right, I would realize, astonished. I was wrong and he was right.
I poured myself a glass of red wine and drank it, repeating that two more times. When I checked the bottle, it was still full. I chortled to myself, I’m going to keep this bottle, and took it with me.
George emerged from the bathroom. I tried being polite with him, asking, where are you going? How long will you be away? He gave me mean looks, refusing to answer, walking up the stairs to the kitchen. which didn’t have any walls.
Going outside with my bottle of wine, I met my youngest sister by a table. A single glass was on top of the table. As I spoke with her about George’s surprising intelligence, I poured wine into the glass. I completely missed the glass! Red wine made a huge stain on the white carpet.
Horror struck me. Oh, my god, what was I going to do? My sister was anxious about it, too. We threw glances back at the house and warned one another, Mom better not find out.
I went back to the house. George was about to leave. I told him to have a good journey and to stay safe. He departed without replying.
Michael Seidel, writer 